Harris-Trump Showdown: In Nation’s Biggest Battleground, New Poll Shows ‘It’s Really, Really Close’

HARRISBURG, Pa. – As Vice President Kamala Harris returned to Pennsylvania on Wednesday for her second trip in three days, three new polls indicate an incredibly close race between her and former President Donald Trump in the crucial swing state with less than a week to go until Election Day.

Trump stands at 47% support among likely voters in Pennsylvania, with Harris at 46%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. And a CNN poll indicated the race was a dead heat, with both party nominees at 48% support.

Meanwhile, a Monmouth University survey indicated that just under half of registered voters in Pennsylvania say they either definitely or have already voted for the vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee (42%) or are likely to vote for her (5 %).

An identical number will either definitely or already have voted for Trump (42%) or are likely to vote for the former president and the Republican presidential nominee (5%), in a separate question asked by the pollster.

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Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, headlines a rally at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg, Pa. on 30 October 2024 (Fox News – Bryan Llenas)

With 19 electoral votes on the line, Pennsylvania is the largest of the seven key battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and which will likely decide who wins the 2024 presidential election.

IN The Quinnipiac study – completed 24.-28. October – Trump’s one-point lead is a shift from their survey in early October, when Harris had a three-point advantage.

In the new poll, Green Party candidate Jill Stein gets two percent support and Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver stands at one percent.

According to the Monmouth poll, when third-party and independent candidates are factored into the results, Trump stands at 47% of registered voters in Pennsylvania, while Harris at 46% and 4% say they definitely or probably support another candidate.

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The release from Monmouth University on their new poll emphasized in the headline that in Pennsylvania “it’s really, really close.”

“The bottom line is this was an incredibly close race in September, and it remains so today,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, comparing the results of his new survey in the Keystone State to his previous poll in Pennsylvania.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the PPL Center on October 29, 2024 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The survey highlighted that Trump “continues to hold a significant advantage among white voters without a college degree — who make up nearly half of Pennsylvania’s voter pool,” and topped Harris 60-35% among that group.

However, the poll shows that Harris has a large 58%-37% lead among white college graduates and voters who are black, Hispanic and other races (62% to 25%).

The Quinnpiac survey shows a widening of the gender gap.

Men backed Trump 57 to 37 percent — up nine points from their previous survey in October — while women back Harris 55 to 39 percent, which was mostly unchanged from earlier this month.

“The gender gap widens as Trump widens his lead among men as what remains a very tight race enters the final stretch,” noted poll analyst Tim Malloy of Quinnipiac University.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, arrives at a rally at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center on October 30, 2024 in Harrisburg, Pa. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

With six days until Election Day, the new surveys follow other recent polls that point to an incredibly close race in the Keystone State. A CBS News poll conducted 22-28 October indicated that both major party candidates were locked at 49%.

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Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, are the three Rust Belt states that make up the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall”.

Democrats reliably won all three states for a quarter of a century before Trump narrowly captured them in the 2016 election over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the White House.

Four years later, in 2020, Biden carried all three states by razor-thin margins to put them back in the Democratic column and defeat Trump.

Both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and their running mates have made repeated stops in the three states this summer and fall.

The vice president on Wednesday, speaking before a large crowd at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center, urged his supporters to “get this done.”

Harris made several stops Sunday in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city. Trump held a campaign event Tuesday in Delaware County, in suburban Philadelphia, before holding a rally in Allentown.

“I don’t like to talk too early, but you’ve got to get out and vote because we … we want a big, beautiful number. We’re leading in every single swing state. Because usually Republicans like to vote at the end, no matter what you say, they like to vote at the end,” Trump said from the Allentown rally.

Trump’s new pitch for early voting contrasts with his years of blaming the practice for what he continues to claim — without evidence — that his 2020 election loss was due to “massive voter fraud.”

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Since Haris replaced Biden at the top of the Democrats’ 2024 ticket after the president dropped out of the race in July, Fox News found that the vice president has visited Pennsylvania at least 15 times as of Tuesday.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are teaming up for the first time on the campaign trail, hours after the vice president named Walz as his running mate on the Democratic ticket in Philadelphia on August 6, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

Philadelphia was where Harris first teamed up with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after announcing him as her running mate. Harris hunkered down in Pittsburgh — the state’s second-largest city — to prepare for his first and only debate with Trump, which was held in September in Philadelphia.

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Trump has also visited the state at least 15 times since late July, Fox News found. Trump’s history with Pennsylvania was underscored by an assassination attempt on his life on July 13 in Butler, when a man named Mathew Crooks opened fire on Trump and his supporters. Trump was wounded in the side of the head in the shooting, and two other rally attendees were also injured. Local man Corey Comperatore died protecting his family during the violence.

Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has visited the state at least 13 times since the start of August. Walz has visited Pennsylvania at least nine times since August, data compiled by Fox News found.

Both campaigns have spent more than half a billion dollars on ads in Pennsylvania alone, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week. Democrats spent more than $294.7 million in Pennsylvania, while Republicans spent $243.6 million in the Keystone State. The funds spent far exceed ad buys in other battleground states, including Michigan, which trails Pennsylvania by a combined $185 million in ad spending.

AdImpact, a leading national ad tracking firm, reported that the Trump campaign has reserved $5.8 million in ad time to run spots in the final stretch before Election Day, with the Harris campaign shelling out $4.6 million.

When Biden narrowly carried Pennsylvania four years ago, Democrats enjoyed a larger margin of registered voters compared to their Republican counterparts, 4.2 million to 3.5 million. The data shows that Democrats had a registration advantage over Republicans by 685,818 voters during the election, like Biden won with 80,555 votes.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump go back and forth during their first and only debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The GOP has cut that lead this year to a margin of 297,824. When comparing registered voters this election year to 2020, Democrats face a net loss of 257,281 voters, while Republicans have a net gain of 428,537 registered voters.

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More than double the number of previously registered Democrats changed their party affiliation this cycle compared to the number of registered Republicans who left the party. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of State shows that 54,668 registered Democrats changed their party affiliation, compared to 25,634 Republicans.

Late. Bob Casey, D-Pa., greets Bruce Springsteen at a campaign rally with former President Barack Obama, who is supporting Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

In addition to being the biggest of the president’s battlegrounds, Pennsylvania is also home to one of a handful of crucial Senate races that will likely determine whether the GOP regains the chamber’s majority.

According to monmouth poll, Democratic Senator Bob Casey Jr. has a slight lead over Republican challenger Dave McCormick.

Both that CNN poll and the Quinnipiac poll showed Casey with a three-point margin over McCormick.

Forty percent of respondents said they would definitely vote for Casey, while another 7% said they would probably vote for the senator. Thirty-six percent said they would definitely vote for McCormick, while 8% said they would probably cast a vote for the Republican candidate.

Fox News’ Maria Paronich contributed to this report

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